Chan Lowe: The Gaza nightmare

As Golda Meir said in 1957, “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

Fifty-five years later, it looks like they have not yet come to that fundamental turning point—at least, the radical ones. Maybe they don’t have any children. I’m sure there are many Gazans who would just like to be left alone to earn a living and raise their families in peace, but in a monumental act of selfishness, their lives and loved ones are being sacrificed by extremists.

Where the rockets land, and where the shells from retaliatory action find their mark, there is real blood being spilled by real people, a lot of whom probably didn’t have a dog in this fight. Meanwhile, in the sterile environment of the airwaves, another war is being fought—the one for the world’s hearts and minds.

It’s a cynical strategy: Shoot off some rockets, knowing that no civilized country can tolerate this kind of random terror on its population (after all, that’s why the U.S. invaded Afghanistan and is still mired there today), sit back and let the fun begin. With every retaliatory action, an amen corner in the United Nations tut-tuts and moves another resolution to condemn the “Zionist aggressor.” Meanwhile (with a few exceptions, like American media), cameras capture footage of Palestinians grieving over dead children without providing the proper context.

It’s cold, it’s self-centered, and the tragedy is that it’s a futile policy if what the perpetrators are seeking is statehood, independence, and dignity for their people.

Which begs the question: Is that what they really want, or are they simply so blinded by blood lust and testosterone that their only motive is to perpetuate the chaos and kill as many of the enemy as they can, regardless of the cost to their own people?